


Pocket Rainbow

by FasterPuddyTat



Series: A Brief Interlude in Red and Blue [4]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy, The Wizard Of Oz (1939)
Genre: Childhood Memories, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, International Fanworks Day 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 23:19:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17796680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FasterPuddyTat/pseuds/FasterPuddyTat
Summary: When Shepard can't sleep, it's up to Garrus to bring in the big guns.





	Pocket Rainbow

“Garrus?” 

“Mmm.”

“Do the thing?”

“Hm-mm.”

“Please?” His warm bulk pressed against her, and receded. She kissed the hand that rested velvet over hers. She whispered, “Garrus.”

The air shivered around her in a subaural huff. “Go to sleep, Shepard.”

“Can’t.” She took a deep breath, held it until her chest ached, then let the pressure tip over to relief. She exhaled forever. He shifted then, a cool ghost at her side where his arm had been. Talons slid against her bare skin, curled and glass-smooth on her back. He began to hum. “Do the words?”

He stopped. “Mm, they don’t always translate, Sloane. Remember last time…”

She chuckled. “And Ireland sinks on fruited lots. Word salad at its finest.” She arched into him, inviting his full attention. “Still. I like the words. Even the wrong ones.” His talons resumed their inexact circuit, and he did the words for her.

_Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high. There’s a, land that I heard of, once, in a lullaby._

Shepard closed her eyes. She recalled their positions reversed, only a handful of nights between this and their confessions. She had asked him a wounding question, and he’d given a flayed answer. Once she’d dulled the edge of that grief with his song, she’d gifted him one of hers. This one.

_Somewhere, over the rainbow, skies are blue. And the, dreams that you dare to dream, really do come true._

Sometime farther back, she had lost her prism. Her pocket rainbow. It had been another gift, received this time. Once, it floated alongside a marble of hematite, a shard of quartz, and a sun of tigerseye in a delicate web of dark energy. _Without control, there is no power. Only destruction._ She whiled hundreds of hours away in the creation and preservation of that tiny solar system. It traveled to basic, to her first ship, and the next. It soothed her from N1 to N7. It waited for her after blood and death and acid on Akuze. It was lost when the first Normandy was shot down. As, in many ways, was she.

_Some day I’ll wish upon a star, and wake up where the clouds are far behind, me._

She had loved university. The ancient trees, the red roof tiles, the banks and banks of low stone stairs drawing her from one class to the next, the sweet burn in her legs as she took them two by two. Knowledge and debt weighed on her equally, guiding her course schedules to include things like _organic chemistry_ and _xenobiology_ and _extra-solar evolutionary theory._ There were days when she longed for the physical release of a thousand pliés seeking perfection, but she had set childish things aside. When she looked to the future, she looked up.

_Where troubles melt like lemon drops, away above the chimney tops, that’s where you’ll, find me._

She never did play Dorothy, even though the Conservatory regularly produced the Wizard of Oz for their summer repertory. Dorothy was petite, her movement elegant, her voice clear. Shepard towered over her human classmates by thirteen, her limbs unruly, her voice husky. Shepard played the Cowardly Lion, when she was cast at all. She turned her frustration against her corps sparring partners, and won every match.

_Somewhere, over the rainbow, bluebirds fly._

The year from nine to ten was heavy, full of shrapnel and gunpowder, worry and hunger. Sleep was an enemy, starvation a constant companion. The migrant caravans offered a shabby protection, but only while the season lasted. Churches were warm, but one hand offered a blanket while the other held a bind. On her tenth birthday, she walked to the city. She picked the wrong pocket and was dumped before the leader of the Reds. She picked many more pockets after that, trading raw bones freedom for white knuckle security. That didn’t last, either. Two of the Reds attacked her. Her biotics nearly killed them, and the government snapped her up, just like that. They gave her a choice. An echo of her lost home whispered, _Somewhere…_ She chose the Conservatory.

_Birds fly, over the rainbow, why oh why can’t I?_

Sloane Dorothea Shepard was brought to the agency at around two years of age with her name and a lock of red hair. One of the caseworkers took her in after a year in the system. That was her Gran. She knew this because Gran told her every time she asked about her parents, every time she came home with ripped clothes or bad grades. Gran had given her a birth date. Gran had given her a home. Gran played the Wizard of Oz on repeat when the winter wind grew teeth and kept her locked indoors. She ought to be grateful. She was, too late.

_If happy little bluebirds fly, over the rainbow, why, oh, why, can’t…I?_

Garrus whispered the pads of his fingers down the hollow of her neck. Her muscles were slack, her lashes a dark sweep across her cheek. He brushed away the damp that had caught in them. Slow, even breaths pressed her soft skin against his hard edges, and their mingled scent lay heavy in her hair. He drew his long arm over her side again, and hummed a reprise below her hearing. 

_Somewhere, over the rainbow…_

**Author's Note:**

> I read another fic where Shepard had a collection of marbles (?) that she used in the same way as the stones here. I intended to credit when I published, but then I couldn't find it, and after a while I just plain forgot. Mea culpa, babes, mea culpa.


End file.
